The Pied Piper
by kate avalanche
Summary: To save Cathy's life, Trowa will do anything. To save his friends from Trowa, Quatre will sacrifice anything. The story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. eventual 3X4, buckets of angst, and AU.


I tried writing this story once before and it turned into a hot mess. This is take two, and I'm much happier with it so far. If you want, drop me a review telling me what you like or dislike about it!

* * *

Trowa sank into the chair with a sigh. Frowning, he bent down to pull off his shoes. Tonight had been the worst in a long time. He'd thought Cathy had been getting better. She'd seemed happier, stronger, more relaxed than he'd seen her in months.

He'd been wrong.

He thought over the night's events and wanted to slap himself. How could he have been so stupid? After about four days of his big sister seeming to be on the up and up, she had begged permission to perform. She wouldn't do her normal performance, of course; her usual airborne acrobatics were out of the question, but she was certain that the tightrope, with a safety net and lower to the ground than usual, wouldn't be too much of a risk. Trowa, anxious to believe his sister was getting better, urged the ringmaster to agree. How could he stand up against his two star performers?

So there they were. Cathy lay in her bed, flushed and taking shallow, gasping breaths. Trowa sat at her bedside, green eyes dull and normally passive face stretched into a frightened frown.

He started at the touch of the ringmaster's hand on his shoulder, "Trowa, you can't do this to yourself. It was never your fault-"

Trowa whirled on him, eyes dark and hard, "Of course, it's not! I'm not stupid enough to blame myself for her sickness. But I should have known better than to let her go out there tonight. A few days of hope aren't the same as a cure!" He slumped down against the back of the chair, "What if she had gotten hurt, Lionel? What if the safety net hadn't worked? What if she had fallen wrong? I can't…I can't let my sister die. She's all I have in the world…" He pressed his eyes shut as tightly as possible, refusing to cry.

The old man gave Trowa's shoulder a quick squeeze, "The doctors have all said the same thing, you know. Without the proper medication, she can't get any better."

"But the money…"

"If you need to leave us, I understand. You can do so much better than this old circus. With what I can afford to pay you, well, there's not much hope. We'd be glad to watch over Catherine for you," Lionel looked at Trowa, trying to gauge his reaction. All he got was a faint nod, "Just think about it, alright?" And with that, the ringmaster left the room, softly closing the door behind him.

Trowa turned back to the bed, and his sister. She slept fitfully then, her breath still too shallow and ragged for Trowa's liking. He brushed brown curls from her eyes and thought about what Lionel had said.

Catherine had been sick for months now, and every doctor told him the same thing. She was completely curable. With medication, she would be good as new within weeks.

But those drugs were obscenely expensive. There was no imaginable way that a pair of orphaned circus performers could afford it. From the very first day after they'd heard the diagnosis, Trowa had been working every odd job he could find along the route the circus took, supplementing their income as much as he could. Despite that, it never seemed to be enough. All the money went to keeping Catherine from getting worse, not towards making her any better.

A too-warm hand on his wrist jolted him from his thoughts.

"Trowa, you're worrying too much. You're trying so hard, I know something will happen soon. Something good," she smiled, smoothing the furrow between his brows, "And then I won't have to see this wrinkle again."

She opened her mouth to continue, then hunched over, coughs shaking her slight frame. Immediately, Trowa was there with his arm around her back. Once the coughs petered out, he checked the hand with which she'd covered her mouth for blood. There was none. He let out a small sigh of relief.

Catherine, her voice raspy, said, "I always thought you were the one who would need taking care of…" With that, she closed her eyes and dropped off to sleep.

He had made up his mind. He would leave the circus in the morning.

* * *

As soon as faint veins of light began to stain the early morning sky, Trowa gave up on his futile attempts at sleep.

Every time he had felt himself beginning to drift off, he was on his feet once more to check on Catherine. It didn't matter that she was never any different – always the same shallow, labored breathing.

Even if his mind hadn't already been made up the night before, he would have been certain now. He couldn't let his sister live like this. It broke his heart to see the sister he loved, and the only family he had ever known, gradually wither.

Slowly, so as not to wake anyone, Trowa got up from his bed and began filling a little sack with a change of clothes, food, and as much money as he could justify taking.

"Trowa?"

His head snapped up. Damn. He hadn't wanted to have to deal with goodbyes. But he should have known Cathy wouldn't let him off that easily.

"Hey, what are you doing up? You should be getting as much rest as you can."

Catherine narrowed bright green eyes, "I could ask you the same thing," her face softened, "I always knew you'd leave. You can't just sit here and watch me get worse. But I at least expected a 'goodbye'."

Trowa could feel her eyes searching his face, not at all sure what she found there, "I'm leaving so I can make you better, not because I can't watch," his voice dropped, so soft she had to strain to hear it, "I'm not weak."

"I know. I never once thought you were weak," she reached out for his hand and pulled him down to sit on the edge of her bed. She laughed, and for a second, Trowa saw the Catherine he remembered, "Reckless, maybe. Pigheaded, absolutely. But never weak," she brushed dark brown hair back from his forehead.

She gave him an appraising look, "So. You're going off to save me?"

Trowa nodded.

"Then what are you waiting for?" Cathy pulled him in tight for a hug. Trowa could feel how much muscle tone she had lost, how delicate she had become, and he frowned, "Just please be safe. You're the only little brother I've got."

And with that, the boy walked out of the circus and onto the main road. Every few minutes, he found himself looking over his shoulder, until the circus had all but vanished.

* * *

When Trowa woke, the sun was just a sliver of light on the horizon and every muscle in his body was screaming.

"You dead or something?"

Trowa looked up and saw what had woken him – aside from the pain that comes from sleeping in a ball on stone.

Crouched beside him was a young man, willowy with a long, thick, chestnut braid and impossibly violet eyes. His expression was curious. Trowa took the hand offered him and the man pulled him up to stand.

"If you don't mind my asking, what the hell were you thinking, man? This isn't exactly the safest place for a nap."

"I didn't know. It was late and I didn't want to spend money on a room for the night," he said, still being cautious. The man himself had said it; this wasn't a safe place for someone to be wandering around all by himself.

The man eyed him, curious. Then, with a sigh and a smile, "Well, where are you going? East? I can at least get you partway."

"I'd just need to get to the nearest town. I'm looking for a job," Trowa noticed the wagon on the road behind the man, the back stacked with crates.

The man nodded, "Climb on, man. I can take you that far."

They rode a while in silence. Then, the man turned.

"Just occurred to me that we haven't been properly introduced. I'm Duo, traveling merchant by trade. You?"

"Trowa. Circus performer," Duo let out a guffaw.

"I knew you had to be nuts to sleep in a pile of rocks! A circus boy, that explains it!" he eyed Trowa, "I'm guessing acrobat?"

Trowa nodded, feeling a small smile pull at the corners of his mouth.

One of the horses tossed its head, seeming annoyed with Duo's outburst of chuckles. Trowa just smiled and stared off into the distance, watching the road stretch on out of sight.

* * *

"Hey, Trowa," Duo butted the boy with a bony elbow, "There it is, your best bet for a job. Pretty impressive, eh?"

Trowa looked at the town as it grew closer. It was big, to be sure, but Trowa had been in just about every kind of town there was traveling with the circus. He feigned excitement for the man's sake.

"It really is. It's so big; there must be thousands of people there."

"You bet your ass," Duo, appearing pleased with his reaction, fished around in the rucksack under the driver's bench. He pulled out a slightly bruised and bumped peach and tossed it to Trowa, saying, "Don't imagine you've had much to eat lately, wandering around out here. It's not the best, but it's what I've got."

He accepted the abused fruit gratefully.

Duo guided the horses to pull his cart through the town and down into the open market. As they went, Trowa heard people calling out greetings to the man from every direction.

"Do you come here a lot?"

"Six times a year since I was born! My old man - Howard? Maybe you've heard of him - he started it up and took me along for the ride, so I grew up on the road. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who lives here that I haven't met at least once," he pulled up to an empty patch of dry grass, clambering off of the bench, "and this, mister, is where we part ways. I've got to set up shop, and you've got to go find yourself a job."

Trowa found his hand grabbed and shaken thoroughly, a warm smile on Duo's face.

"I've got a friend around here, a girl - goes by Hilde - see if she can't find you something to do. Just tell her I sent you," Duo called after Trowa.

The acrobat found himself returning the smile and thanking Duo, setting off towards the center of town.


End file.
